Conventional farming , also known as industrial agriculture or main stream farming, refers to farming systems which include the use of Synthetic chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and other continual inputs, heavy usage of farm machinery, selective breeding, genetically modified organisms, heavy irrigation, intensive village, or concentrated animal feeding operations and concentrated monoculture production. Thus it results in high inputs of capital,labour, heavy machinery and technology . The goal of conventional agriculture is to maximize the potential yield of crops.
Conventional farming methods
1.Intensive commercial farming
Intensive farming is an agricultural system, which is carried on in densely populated areas and where land holdings are small . It aims to get maximum yield from the available land by using excessive amount of chemical fertilizers and pesticides on a tiny acreage. This principle is also applied to the raising of livestock with hundreds of animals, such as cows,pigs and chickens, being held indoors in what have become known as factory farms.
Products such as eggs,meat, and other agricultural items that are easily available in markets today are produced through intensive farming methods . This is a system of agriculture which requires relatively large amounts of capital and labour . Intensive farming is practised in countries like India, china and UK.
2. Extensive commercial farming
It is practised in moderately populated areas where the population pressure is less and farms are large, as in the USA ,Canada and Australia. This farming methods requires relatively small amounts of capital or labour investment and is mostly mechanised because of the high cost and low availability of labour. When compared to intensive farming , the per capita yield is less in extensive farming.
3. Plantation agriculture
Plantation is an estate or a large piece of land. Plantation agriculture involves growing and processing of a single cash crop purely meant for sale in distant markets rather than local consumption. Examples of this type of farming are the tea plantations is Assam and West Bengal, the coffee plantation in Karnataka and tamilnadu , rubber plantations in Kerala, grapevine plantation in Italy and France and olive plantations in Mediterranean countries.
4. Co-operative farming
Co-operative farming is a relatively new farming method in India where pooling of land and farming resources such as fertilizers, pesticides, farming equipment such as tractors takes place. Profit on total produce is shared by the farmers in accordance with their land contribution and labour performed.
5. Shifting agriculture
Shifting cultivation is a form of agriculture, used especially in tropical Asia in which an area of land is cleared of vegetation and cultivated for a few years, then abandoned and allowed to revert to its natural fertility. Meanwhile the cultivators moves on to another area.
6.slash and burn agriculture
In slash-and-burn agriculture, or fire-fallow cultivation, areas of the forest are burned and cleared for planting . The resulting layer of ash provides the newly-cleared land with a nutrient-rich layer to help fertilize crops.
7.poultry farming
Poultry farming is the process of raising domesticated birds such as chickens, ducks, turkeys and geese for the purpose of farming meat or eggs for food.
8.Diary farming
Dairy farming is a class of agriculture for the long-term production of milk from cows or goats, or buffaloes or camels, which is processed for eventually sale of a dairy product.
9.sericulture or silk farming
Sericulture or silk farming is the cultivation of silkworms to produce silk.
